by Jerry
Half-way through his work he realized he had given no instructions, and started to retrace his steps, adding to his message: “Come to the Waldorf.”
Next morning Joe left the hotel around noon and walked across town to the Broadway section. He wrote a note on the window of the Times Building, doing so more as a matter of habit than anything else. He was convinced that there was no one beside himself in New York.
DISCONSOLATELY Joe Dunn sat down on a bench in that little triangle of concrete in front of Father Duffy’s statue and looked at all the signs. How silly they looked without any lights or motion.
“New York in your vest pocket, eh?” He went back to his old game of seeing if the sun had moved. He held his finger right on the edge of a shadow and waited, but the shadow never changed.
Several cigarettes later he started walking back across town. He judged it should have been late afternoon as he walked slowly through the Park Avenue entrance of the Waldorf and up the broad steps into the main lobby. On the top step Joe froze. Sitting primly in one of those big lobby chairs was a girl. She stood up, and neither of them spoke for a long unbelievable minute.
“Julie!” exclaimed Joe. He tried to shout it, but there was a huskiness to his voice and a queer, constricting ache to his throat. “Julie Crosby!”
“Hello,” said Julie in a strained, tentative way. “I—I wondered if it would be—be you.”
“Julie,” Joe repeated in a steadier voice. Then he was moving forward to reach her, his hand outstretched hesitantly—as though the girl would suddenly disappear before he could touch her.
And then Julie was in his arms, clinging desperately to him, and sobbing hysterically against his chest.
“Joe! Joe!” she sobbed brokenly. “It’s—it’s been so terrible. What on earth has happened?”
Joe held her tightly. He felt like crying himself. He was trembling all over, with hot and cold flashes using his spine for a signal beam.
“Gosh only knows, Julie,” he said. “But where have you been? I remember that we seemed to fall down up there on the R.C.A. Building, but when I regained my senses I couldn’t find you. I couldn’t find anybody. What became of you?”
“That’s what I was going to ask you,” she answered after she had quieted down. “We fell, and I must have fainted. When I woke up you were gone and I was all alone. So terribly alone. I finally opened a bottle of brandy and took one drink. Then—”
“Was it night or daylight when you recovered?” demanded Joe quickly.
The girl shuddered. “It was just like it is now—late morning. The sun hasn’t moved an inch since then. I’ve lost track of time, but it must have been days and days. I think I have slowly been going crazy.”
“Somehow we got separated up there, and I missed you,” figured Joe. “It was night when I woke up—and daylight when I finally reached the street. I’ve tried vainly to understand what has happened, but I couldn’t. I’ve looked everywhere for the least sign of life and found nothing. I was down to your Grove Street place twice. Where have you been hiding?”
“In—in the Astor Hotel,” she replied faintly. “I was afraid to walk the streets for three days. Since then I’ve spent all my time either in my hotel room, the kitchen, and the Public Library. I’ve been trying to find some sort of explanation for what has happened from scientific books. But it is all sort of a hopeless muddle, and I’ve been so—so afraid.”
She started crying afresh. This made Joe feel more the protector.
“Here, here, that won’t do,” he counseled. “Let’s pick it up from here. I never thought about going to the Library. I doubt if we’ll find any answers there. We’ve got to find Reverend Fletcher again. Meanwhile, Miss Crosby, if you have no previous engagement, how about dinner with me tonight?”
Julie smiled through her tears. Then, solemnly: “I’d love to, but I have a date—a big dinner party at the St. Regis, and then on to the opening performance at the opera. I wish I could break it, but I made it weeks ago.”
“Why can’t you call your friends up and tell them you are indisposed?” Joe suggested gravely.
“I might,” she paused. “But we’re sure to run into them somewhere around town.” They both smiled again, and Julie continued: “Oh, well, I’ll do it. We’ll take a chance. Shall we dress?”
“Dress?” Joe answered. “Of course we dress. Always dress in the jungle—white man’s burden—keeping up morale and all that stuff.”
Julie was now feeling so much better she laughed. “Fine. Why don’t you pick me up at my place and we’ll have a cocktail, say about seven?”
“Wonderful. I hope your suite is no higher than the third floor. The elevator service is terrible lately.”
She gave him the number of her room on the second floor of the Astor, shook hands gaily to carry out the farce and then departed, to dress for dinner. At the entrance her fears returned.
“Joe—don’t take too long, please.”
BUT Joe had a problem. His, wardrobe didn’t include a dinner coat. A quick shopping trip, which included a clothing store and a small shop in the hotel, took care of his problem.
Later, as he walked up and down shaking a cocktail in Julie’s suite and talked to her through the door as she was dressing, Joe glanced at himself in a mirror, and smiled with approval.
When Julie appeared, Joe realized at once that only some artist like Hattie Carnegie could have designed that little number. Joe stopped in mid-shake and stared at her in genuine amazement.
“Wonderful!” he admired. “I never realized you were so gorgeous, Julie. You should have worn clothes like that always.”
“On my salary?” she came back. “But I’m so glad you like it. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion like this—in the shop downstairs.”
Joe nodded and then turned slowly about before her. “What do you think, of my dinner coat? The pants are a trifle long, but this is a spare tux I picked up today—right off a hanger over in Fifth Avenue.”
They both laughed, and Joe filled their glasses. Gravely he offered her a toast.
“Thank God, I found you,” he said fervently.
“Thank God,” she echoed.
Two cocktails and several thousand words later, Julie having related all the empty nothingness that had befallen her, and Joe having done the same, but with the embellishments befitting a newspaperman, the girl surveyed him thoughtfully.
“Yes, I took a drink of brandy out of that bottle you found on your second trip,” she said. “Then on my way down I broke my heel off and had to limp the rest of the way. I’m trying not to think about it right now, with you here, but I finally wound up in the Astor. I just stayed. I was never so tired in all my life. Tomorrow we can start to try to figure things out, but tonight, if it is night, was that dinner invitation of yours really on the level?”
Joe poured the two last drops out of the shaker into Julie’s glass.
“Finish that, my good woman, and I’ll have Burton whisk us to the Plaza where I have made all arrangements for some fine groceries. The wine is, at this moment, chilled to the exact degree.”
Julie put down her glass. “Who is Burton?”
“Burton’s my chauffeur. Who did you suppose Burton was? By the way, why not dine here?”
“Let’s,” agreed Julie. “And give Burton the night off.”
“A good idea. I’ve had him out every night for a week . . . have your maid call the desk and tell him, will you?”
In the hotel kitchens, Julie, holding up her long skirt and Joe climbing on tables to look in high cupboards, they finally assembled a meal. With candles and the soup on a table, they stepped back into the lobby and walked in again bowing to imaginary friends on their way to the table. When they sat down Joe leaned across and hissed at her.
“Isn’t that Manny Tomville with Meggy Jopkins Hoyce sitting over there?” And as Julie started to turn, “Not now—they’re looking at us.”
Dinner was fun. Once Joe pushed back from the
table and looked long and hard at Julie. The girl looked up, and her eyes were filled with a curious expectancy.
“Anything the matter?”
Joe came around to her side of the table and moved the candles so that more light fell on her face. “No, but I can’t get over how lovely you are, and how I could have been so blind not to have noticed it. You fooled me completely with that work in the office, photographer, career woman, low-heeled shoes, and glasses.”
CHAPTER V
Accounts Are Balanced
FINALLY they walked back up to Julie’s apartment. She asked him up for a nightcap and went to the bar table to pour Scotch into glasses.
“Soda?” she asked. “Oh, no, I remember—it’s plain water, isn’t it?”
“It used to be,” Joe said, “but I think the bottled variety’s safer now. That stagnant river doesn’t make me too happy about the reservoirs.”
This unhappy remark sobered them for a while. For a moment they sipped their drinks in silence, and then Julie got up for a cigarette.
“Tonight was fun, wasn’t it?” she said wistfully.
“Tonight was maybe the best fun I’ve ever had.”
Julie acknowledged this with a small appreciative bow and went back to her chair. Joe lighted her cigarette for her and then sat facing her. He regarded her solemnly, then narrowed his eyes and squinted at her.
“You know, it’s funny.”
“What’s funny?”
“That, out of all the people who might have been left, it’s you who are here. That, lady, comes under the heading of fool’s luck for me, no matter how you look at it.”
A little embarrassed by his own speech Joe drained his glass and inspected its emptiness. Julie gestured toward the bar table, and Joe mixed himself another drink. The girl still didn’t say anything. For a time they sat in silence.
“Where do you suppose they all went, Joe?” she asked faintly. “Now that you are here with me I’m getting a firmer grip on myself. I’m not so scared anymore, but what’s it all about? What has happened to us? And why?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Joe slowly. “If we had only got more information out of that Fletcher instead of laughing up our sleeves at him.”
“I wasn’t laughing while we were in that—that queer room.”
“Neither was I. Frankly, that man baffled me. But what the devil did he mean about that Universe Master business? I haven’t been a particularly religious man, but I know that none of that stuff jibes with any part of the ideology of the entire world. I just don’t get it!”
“That room in that school house was like no room I ever saw before,” mused Julie.
“No, it wasn’t. It was more like—like a focused spot in space. Like being inside a cloud—or something.” Joe was groping for words to express this intangible and abstract idea.
“Exactly,” agreed Julie. “Joe, the only thing to do is for us to go back to Berry Meadows and find Fletcher. He’s simply got to be there! And we’ve got to make him explain—make him right all this—this crazy business, if he really had anything to do with it.”
“It’s a long walk,” commented Joe significantly.
“I know,” she said. “But we’ll have to face it. But we don’t have to start out right away. Let’s rest up and explore New York first. Perhaps Fletcher will come to us. He said he would be at the latitude and longitude of Radio City once. Anyway, we have plenty of time—all the time in the world.”
Her shoulders began to shake, and Joe could see that she was on the verge of hysteria again.
“Fine idea,” he said promptly. “We’ll play around for a few days. How about lunch tomorrow?”
“Lunch would be swell. We can both sleep late—this no darkness stuff has thrown me off in my sleeping habits. But where shall I meet you? How will we know what time?”
“I’ll come for you here. Goodnight, Julie.”
She arose and held out her hands. He took them firmly. He wanted to kiss her, but he did not. There was too much else worrying him. He just pressed her fingers tightly and then released them.
“Goodnight, Joe,” she said bravely.
He picked up his hat and, with a little encouraging wave of his hand, went out. Julie stood for quite a while at the door, watching and staring long after his figure had passed out of sight down the stairs . . . .
During the next few days Julie and Joe really covered the elite spots of the town. They did all the things and saw all the places every visitor and worker in the metropolis once had wanted to do and see. They went backstage at the Music Hall, visited every famous nightclub they could reach without too much walking, stopped in at the American Express and arranged an imaginary trip around the world. They even went behind the scenes at such places as the Automat to learn how pies and sandwiches used to slip out through the little glass doors.
But none of this was fun. No mechanism would work for them, and the utter absence of other people made all pretense futile and vain.
They turned from this, to shopping, but aside from picking out an occasional article of clothing they disturbed nothing. What point could there be in selecting furniture, bric-a-brac, jewelry, money—or anything—and carrying it from one place to another? Didn’t they own the whole of the city, perhaps the entire world? Why lug stuff around? Just use it where they found it.
ON the course of time a trail of broken windows and smashed doors furnished mute evidence of their various excursions about Manhattan.
“Enough charges of breaking and entering to send both of us up for two hundred years,” observed Joe. And this remark gave neither of. them a laugh.
Such places as grill-protected establishments they made no attempt to enter. Why waste time and effort to cut through metal grills to get to something for which they had no use?
And all the time they, knew they were simply putting off the necessity of a hundred-mile walk to a place called Berry Meadows because they were afraid they wouldn’t find Fletcher B. Fletcher when they got there. And with this final hope vanished there would be absolutely nothing left for them but madness. There was a sort of intimacy between them, yes. They knew they were falling in love with each other, but they never spoke of such things. They were like two babes lost in a modern wilderness, still groping to adjust themselves to a condition that was too vast and too shocking to believe fully.
Then came that priceless moment they were strolling up Fifth Avenue toward Central Park, pretending they were in the Easter parade. As they crossed Fifty-sixth Street Joe became aware of a sudden dizzy feeling. He almost reeled, and he noticed that Julie did the same thing. It was as though the earth beneath them had shuddered. Not a local surging or buckling of the pavement. Not even as an earthquake ripple. It was more as though an immense body had sluggishly started to move. Like a subway train starting up, only on a far vaster scale.
They steadied each other and looked around fearfully.
“Look!” said Joe, pointing upward at a tiny patch of cloud that had hung in the same spot in the sky like Coleridge’s “painted ship upon a painted ocean.”
Julie stared. “Joe, it’s moving!” she cried.
Joe placed the edge of his shoe right at the edge of the shadow of a building, and they stood there staring down. Minutes went by, and then imperceptibly the shadow moved up over the edge of the sole and slowly crept across the toe cap.
Joe straightened up and rubbed his leg to ease the aching muscles.
“What do you think that means?” asked Julie, frightened.
“We are in business again,” said Joe, placing a coin a couple of inches inside the shadow and stepping back in the shade to watch.
Julie sat down on the curb to wait. After a while the shadow was eaten away and the coin lay glittering in the sunshine. The world was on its daily round once more.
“I think it is a good sign,” said Julie. “Maybe a car would run again. Anyway, let’s plan on setting out for Berry Meadows early in the morning—if there really comes a night
and morning.”
“It’s a date, darling,” agreed Joe promptly. “And do you know what we ought to do tonight? We should get up in some high place so that if there’s anybody at all within miles of here we might see a light. If it stays as clear as this, they say—they used to say—you can see forty miles from the top of the R.C.A. Building. How about going back up there?”
“Right after dinner,” said Julie.
Almost gaily they went on to the park and spent hours strolling through the expanse. While there were no animals in the zoo, no birds or squirrels or living and crawling and creeping things in evidence, there was a breeze, and the ground felt good and alive. And the afternoon shadows crept eastward in a perfectly normal manner.
They had dinner at dusk in a restaurant on Sixth Avenue, an almost pleasant business of canned stuff and bottled delicacies. Then they crossed to the R.C-A. Building and started their climb.
It must have been past eleven o’clock by the time they reached the top. It was a beautiful, warm night as they walked out on the parapet and sat on the bench to rest. Julie took off her shoes for a moment, while Joe relaxed and slid down on the end of his spine to gaze enraptured at the night sky.
They were facing west and could see the Hudson which was a solid ribbon of silver in the moonlight. Beyond the Palisades the flat New Jersey meadows stretched out as far as the eye could see.
“Tomorrow,” said Julie eagerly, “we go over there again. Isn’t it wonderful, Joe, that there will be a succession of tomorrows again?”
“Yeah,” said Joe, grunting as he sat up. “Tomorrow I want to get my hands on the Reverend Fletcher B. Fletcher. After that I must take the time to tell you how much I love you. Then, if people don’t come back, we can plan what we are going to do, anyway. At last we’ll be able to get somewhere if machinery will work again.”